From: E-Journal3@usgo.org Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 7:44 PM To: E-Journal3@usgo.org Subject: AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL: December 1, 2003 AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL: News from the American Go Association December 1, 2003 In This Edition: U.S. GO NEWS: Janice Returns; Oza's Coming; Latest GoGoD Now Available; Yuan Zhou In DC; US Pair Go Team Places 17th; Professionally Speaking: Yilun Yang On Sacrificing & Studying; Kaz Continues; In Search Of Zeke; Osman Wins Photo Of The Week WORLD GO: Cho U Pulls Out In Front In Oza; Finalists Set For Jeongganjang Women's Cup; Hane Takes The Lead In Tengen; Other Asian Go News In Brief; Macfadyen Dominates; Macfadyen Dominates Gothenburg; Simon Goss Tops Whittlesford 13x13 GAME COMMENTARY: Tengen, the Large Pig's Mouth & Tesuji 201 GO REVIEW: 200 Endgame Problems GO CLASSIFIED CALENDAR OF EVENTS ATTACHED FILES: 2003.12.01 Roberts-Miller, Yang Commentary.sgf; 2003.12.01 Yutopian Problem Selection 2.sgf; 2003.12.01 Tesuji 201 by Furuyama U.S. GO NEWS JANICE RETURNS: Fans of American pro Janice Kim have two reasons to celebrate. The long-awaited fifth volume of her popular Learn to Play Go series has just been released and Shonen Jump magazine is running "Getting Go", her new column. "Initial reaction has been very positive," Janice reports. In "The Palace of Memory of the Learn to Play Go" Janice and Jeong Soo-hyun 9P reveal the fundamentals of shape and guidelines to correct opening and endgame play, as taught at the the Korean Go Academy. "Palace of Memory" also covers templates for fighting, guidelines to correct shape, opening theory made simple, principles of standard sequences, techniques for winning endgame and a "Test Yourself" section to check your progress. The 210-page paperback is $17.95 and is available at http://www.samarkand.net/Web_store/web_store.cgi?page=L5A.html&cart_id= OZA'S COMING: Register now for one of 2004's biggest go events, the Toyota/Denso Oza Championship January 17-18 in New York City and Seattle, Washington. The Toyota/Denso Oza Championship is an international tournament held once every two years, featuring the world's top players sponsored by Totoya and Denso Corps. This is an open tournament featuring at least $20,000 in total prizes for both locations, generously distributed through all sections. Top sections will feature American professionals and top amateurs, lower sections will include players of all strengths. The 2001 Oza drew more than 200 players. This year even more are expected. Get details and register at http://www.usgo.org/usa/oza.asp LATEST GOGOD NOW AVAILABLE: Over 1,100 games by Takagawa and Meiji games are included in the Winter 2003 update of the GoGoD Encyclopaedia CD, reports T. Mark Hall. The authoritative database now has 26,200 professional games and also now includes Pbase, which Hall promises is "the start of our collection of problems from 22 classical collections." Among the new long features are a biography of Takagawa, a survey of rules incidents, a look at the various insei systems, ladder lore and much more. This is in addition to the usual fund of programs, 300-page Names Dictionary and other go glossaries, photos, poems, stories and proverbs assembled by T. Mark Hall and John Fairbairn. Details at http://www.gogod.demon.co.uk YUAN ZHOU IN DC: Yuan Zhou 7d continues his regular first Friday teaching sessions at the Greater Washington Go Club this coming Friday, Dec 5 at 8:30P in the basement of the Cedar Lane Unitarian Church, 9601 Cedar Lane, Bethesda. Bring game records to participate ($5), or observe for free. Don't have a game? Come early (official opening time 7P) to play and record a game! Info: Haskell Small, haskellsmall@starpower.net US PAIR GO TEAM PLACES 17th: The U.S. team of Gina Shi and Mozheng Guan came in 17th out of 32 teams from around the world participating in the 14th International Amateur Pair Go Championship in Tokyo, Japan last month. AGA Guest Official Jeff Schaevel reports that the tournament also sported a side event for local Tokyo Pair Go players, which featured hundreds of people. Judges included Michael Redmond, who did most of the presenting, Yoshio Ishida and Tomoko Ogawa. Also attending the ceremonies were Rissei O, Chikun Honinbo, and Kaiho Rin, among many other well-known professionals. Shaevel got to be an Irish woman for one round and enjoy the rare opportunity of participating in the games after the Ireland team unfortunately lost all of their games on forfeit because the woman lost her passport en route to the tournament and could not make it into Japan. However, a substitute was provided for each round so that Bernard Palmer, the other half of the team, and each opposing team could still play a game. PROFESSIONALLY SPEAKING: Yilun Yang on Sacrificing & Studying "To get stronger you must learn to give up your stones," Yilun Yang told students at his recent workshop in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Yang was referring to the tendency by amateur go players to try to save every stone, regardless of actual value. Yang unveiled a wealth of stunning new material in the 4-day workshop, impressing even veteran Yang workshop attendees who struggled to absorb the lessons in marathon 18-hour days. At one point, when a student protested "If we try something and it doesn't work, it's just a pure loss," Yang shot back "No, it's not a pure loss: you learned something." In an interview with the E-Journal, Yang recommended that go players who want to improve focus their efforts on playing, game review and problem-solving, in that order. "Studying is no good by itself," Yang said, "You must apply the lessons. Just playing is no good either, although it's a good way to get strong. But it has no long-term future as far as understanding the game." Yang also says that instead of recording games while playing, "It's best to record after the game. If you can do this you will be very strong. You will find that the correct moves are obvious and easy to find." Interestingly, Yang does not recommend pro game study for kyu and low-dan players, who he says "won't understand the games and will get ideas they're not able to successfully implement." Instead, he favors peer review of games to develop a better sense of your strengths and weaknesses. Tsume-go and tesuji problem solving is the key to building reading strength and Yang says a solid third of the time should be focused on this area. One of the most active teaching professionals in America, Yang maintains a grueling 14-16-hour-a-day schedule of lessons with his 50 students, as well as regular workshops around the country. - reported by Chris Garlock KAZ CONTINUES: This week we continue with our second lesson from Kazunari Furuyama, this time focusing on the "tsuke," or "attachment" tesuji. Other applications of this key tesuji will be shown in future lessons. "Kaz" is a former insei who has been a highly successful go teacher in Japan for several years. IN SEARCH OF ZEKE: Can Zeke Tamayo please drop us a line at journal@usgo.org? We'd like to send him a gift certificate for his recent go software review. OSMAN WINS PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Eric Osman is the winner to last week's Homepage Photo Contest. He correctly identified the photo as depicting the smallest living groups possible, or "minimal life." Eric's response less than fifteen minutes after the E-Journal went out also sets a new record; congrats Eric! Eric narrowly beat out Gordon Ho by just 5 minutes. Honorable mentions go to: David Boyer, Russ Williams, Justin Bazzano, Keith Arnold, Pete Schumer (who added "These are fun. Keep up the good work!"); T. Neill, Laura Kolb and Steve Colburn. THIS WEEK'S PHOTO CONTEST: Who's the woman on the left and what's she noted for in the go world? Be the first to tell us and you could be next week's Homepage Photo Contest winner! Check it out at http://www.usgo.org/ Email us at journal@usgo.org WORLD GO CHO U PULLS OUT IN FRONT IN OZA: In Atami, Japan, current title holder O Meien 9p resigned to Cho U 9p, losing the third game of the best-of-five 51st Oza championship match. The series now stands at 2:1 in favor of Cho who, along with winning the Honinbo title, became the youngest 9p professional and is now engaged to marry Women's Honinbo title holder Kobayashi Izumi 5p. Game 4 of Oza match will take place on December 4th. - reported by Dennis Hardman FINALISTS SET FOR JEONGGANJANG WOMEN'S CUP: In the semifinal rounds played in Seoul this past week, both Pak Chi-eun 4p and Yun Yeong-seon 3p beat their opponents to advance to the final round of the 2nd Jeongganjang Women's Cup Championship. In their second game, Yeong-seon played White and defeated Yi Yeong-sin 3p by a very close 0.5 points to win the best-of-three semifinal match 2:0. Twenty-year old Chi-eun defeated (by resignation) last year's champion Rui Nawei 9p in the third game of their match to win 2:1. The loss to Chi-eun is another rare setback in the last few weeks for Rui. Known as perhaps the best woman go player in the world, Rui experienced her first women's title match loss at the hands of the amazing teenager Cho Hyeyeon 4p in the Women's Kuksu in mid-November. The final of the Jeongganjang is set to take place in Shanghai, China in January of next year. - reported by Dennis Hardman HANE TAKES THE LEAD IN TENGEN: In a relatively short game of 180 moves, current Tengen title holder Hane Naoki 9p played White to defeat challenger Yamashita Keigo 9p by resignation in game three of the 29th Tengen Tournament. Hane now leads this best-of-five match 2:1. Game 4 will be held on December 4th. Hane and Yamashita will meet in Seattle in January where Yamashita will begin the defence of his Kisei title. Game records can be found at http://www.go4go.net . - reported by Dennis Hardman OTHER ASIAN GO NEWS IN BRIEF (compiled from www.igo-kisen.hp.infoseek.co.jp/news.html) - China: Agon Cup: Gu Li 7p (#1 player in China) defeated Kong Jie 7p to win championship and the right to a challenge match with Kato Masao 9p, the winner of the Japanese version of this event. - Japan: Kobayashi Koichi 9p currently has the lead in the Honinbo League (to select the challenger for the title) with a 2-0 record. - Japan: Michael Redmond 9p defeated Ishida Akira 9p by resignation in the Preliminary A section of the Tengen tournament. - Korea: 8th Chunwon (Tengen): Won Seongjin 5p defeats Choi Cheolhan 5p by 1.5 to take the lead 1-0. - China: Mingren (Meijin): Qiu Jun 6p beats Yu Bin 9p in first game of challenger's final. - reported by Dennis Hardman MACFADYEN DOMINATES GOTHENBURG: Current British Champion Matthew Macfadyen 6d continued his domination of the Gothenburg Tournament with an unbeaten record in five games. This is the latest event in the European Toyota-PandaNet Tour. Second was Dragos Bajenaru 6d of Romania. 59 players participated. - from BGA News SIMON GOSS TOPS WHITTLESFORD 13X13: Sixteen players competed in a double elimination tournament for the British national small boards title on 13X13 boards at Whittlesford near Cambridge. Simon Goss 2d from Bracknell and president of the British Go Association, won, adding a national title to his Cornish one. Second was Toshio Oshima, 4k of Cambridge, and third was Tony Atkins, 3d of Bracknell. - from BGA News GAME COMMENTARY: Tengen, the Large Pig's Mouth & Tesuji 201 Today's game commentary by Yilun Yang 7p is a game between two amateur dan players that features an unusual early play by Black on the center star point (tengen) and was played on the "turn based" site at http://www.dragongoserver.net. Games are stored on the web site and players are informed by email when it is their turn to make a move. Life & Death in the Large Pig's Mouth: we're pleased to offer a bonus problem file this week, an interestingly-named life and death problem selected from "Strategic Fundamentals in Go" by Guo Tisheng and Lu Wen, published by Yutopian, and used with permission. You can check out the book at http://www.yutopian.com This week we continue Kazunari Furuyama's new column with Kaz' second lesson, "Tesuji 201: Tsuke (Attachment)" attached as a PDF that can be read and printed using Adobe's Acrobat Reader (available free from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html). Other applications of this tesuji will be shown in future lessons. "Kaz" is a former insei who has been a highly successful go teacher in Japan for several years. To view the attached .sgf file(s), simply save the file to your computer and then open it using an .sgf reader such as Many Faces of Go or SmartGo. Readers who need .sgf readers can get them for most platforms at Jan van der Steen's http://gobase.org/sgfeditors.html GO REVIEW: 200 Endgame Problems: Winning Tactics by Shirae Haruhiko, from the Nihon Kiin Pocket Series Translated by Steve Bretherick Published by Slate & Shell, http://www.slateandshell.com/. Reviewed by James Bonomo Focusing on tactical play, this book provides 200 endgame problems along with interesting commentary, such as linking tactics to life-and-death, endgame examples from games, and a brief discussion on counting. The problems focus on small-scale sequences independent of any other considerations. Many depend on a shortage of liberties, such as might occur late in a game as the dame are being filled. In some cases, the profit from the correct sequence differs by just one point. Unfortunately, "200 Problems" does not go into the o-yose, or large endgame, omitting any discussion about how to choose between sente and gote. For this issue, "The Endgame," by Tomoko Ogawa and James Davies remains the most familiar reference. However, the sharp focus of "200 Problems" on local problems enables it to provide a more comprehensive look at problems that illustrate how to finish shapes, including many common ones. Knowing these local tesujis is a necessary part of getting stronger. As an AGA 1 kyu, I found a few sequences that I hadn't been playing correctly. Finally, Haruhiko emphasizes a delightful view of the endgame. He poses the positions as challenges - "Find a yose that takes sente" or "How deep into White's corner can you go?" We all are familiar with the frustration of an unexpected endgame sequence that suddenly captures part of a group or creates a costly seki. These can seem like "swindles" unworthy of study but Haruhiko sees endgame sequences as just another class of go problems, smaller than those of the middle game, but still elegant in their own way. Anyone still frustrated by the endgame would gain by reading and beginning to share Haruhiko's view. The perfect-bound small paperback is up to Slate & Shell's usual standards, although it's a bit large for a pocket book. The translation reads smoothly and persuasively. I only found two errors in the diagrams (problem 96, page 99, where one surrounding black stone should be white making an eye for white, and in problem 98, page 100, where the surrounding black wall needs a reinforcement near the edge). [The E-Journal welcomes user reviews of go books, equipment and software; reviewers receive go vendor gift certificates. Email us at journal@usgo.org] Hard Times on the Goban by Joel Turnipseed After a month off for chicken pox and book tour, I'm ready to start getting serious about this whole shodan thing-and, damn, is it getting scary. I had a good game against Kerwin at the beginning of the week, our first in a month. With eight inches of fresh snow on the ground, I decided to save my strength for go and played Jim online. I'm so used to seeing him across the goban from me, taking occasional pauses to "hrmpfff" and jot sequences of stones into his PalmPilot but one thing was the same: he spent twice as long showing me what I did wrong as it had taken to play the game. "Shodan" echoed from a deep canyon* At the club, Martin Bradshaw 5d joked that "it seems like you're working harder on the book you've already written." And I was, but I jumped right in and played a six-stone game against Tim Hoel 2d, losing by five points. Martin and Tim both started reaching, stones in hand, for the same corner when we had finished counting-racing one another to shine a light into the benighted corners of my vast ignorance. The embarrassing thing was that they were reaching for the exact same corner in which I'd played a pattern that Jim Kerwin had pointed out TWICE in our lesson. Except Tim played his attack from two different approaches to the SAME corner, forcing me to build up a useless blob of over-concentrated stones in the corner while using my "attacks" to build up two strong, connected walls. Let's just say, it wasn't the game-but it wasn't pretty, either. And so "the distraction of insight" - we are very easily fooled by ideas, even ones that are both right and which we understand. Go is especially maddening in this respect (and, in this, bears a rich metaphorical application to a hell of a lot else): every rule has a sphere and pattern of applicability, holds within itself a disaster of adherence-and is totally indispensable because without rules and their habits, the game would be too complex: unplayable. Now, to see how I do in Chicago next weekend* will I be 4k? Or 6k? Can shodan be far behind? GO CLASSIFIED WANTED: Idaho Chapter needs go players to demonstrate and recruit for a few hours at the Japan Cultural Fair, Boise State University, Saturday, Dec 6. Contact David Bogie bogiesan@mac.com or 208-854-1518 (11/24) WANTED: Look for Go players in the Greensboro / Winston Salem Triad area who can teach a beginner (like me) or maybe hold regular sessions in local establishment. I'll help in forming a club in the area. krandall@mindspring.com (11/10/) WANTED: A good copy of the movie "The Go Masters." rlaflecheMD@etfsinc.com (11/10) AVAILABLE: Feel like you have been stuck at your current rank forever? Perhaps you need some lessons from a 5 dan. I will give you one free evaluation lesson, just choose what you want. http://www.angelfire.com/oh5/icarii for details (11/10) WANTED: Professional go player and American Go Journal contributing editor James Kerwin is now accepting game records for a new E Journal feature. Kerwin will review selected games online with both players and the game, with commentary, will then appear in the E Journal. There is no cost to players, but at least one must be a member of the American Go Association. Please send .sgf game records to E Journal Assistant Bill Cobb at wmscobb@comcast.net (10/6) Got go stuff to sell, swap or want to buy? Do it here and reach more than 5,000 Go players worldwide every week at Go Classified! Send to us at journal@usgo.org CALENDAR OF EVENTS December 6: Redmond WA Microsoft Go Club Ratings Tournament Peter Davidson 425-702-8781 msftgo@hotmail.com December 6: Chicago, IL Up on the Rooftop Bob Barber 773-467-0423 komoku@earthlink.net December 6: Denver, CO Rocky Mountain Winter Go Tournament Ulo Tamm 303-466-2865 utamm@worldnet.att.net December 13: Cleveland Kyu Tourney/Seminar Care Momus, 491 Brown Street, Akron OH Joe Carl 330-493-1663 jcarl@neo.rr.com December 20: Arlington, VA NOVA Holiday Helper Tournament Allan Abramson 703-684-7676 mediate8@worldnet.att.net January 3 & 4, 2004: San Francisco, CA 12th Jujo Jiang Goe Tournament Michael Bull bull@lmi.net ernest@goedharma.com January 17-19, 2004: Evanston, IL James Kerwin Workshop Mark Rubenstein 847-869-6020 mark@easyaspi.com NOTE: this listing is not all inclusive, featuring only upcoming tournaments in the next month or events which require early registration. For a complete U.S. listings, go to http://www.usgo.org/usa/tournaments.html For the European Go Calendar see http://www.win.tue.nl/cs/fm/engels/go/tourn.html GET LISTED & BOOST TURN OUT! Got an upcoming event? Reach over 5,500 readers every week! List your Go event/news In the E Journal: email details to us at MAILTO:journal@usgo.org Ratings are on the web! Check the website; http://www.usgo.org for the full list. GET YOUR TOURNAMENT RATED! Send your tournament data to MAILTO:ratings@usgo.org AGA CONTACT LIST: For a full list of AGA officers, contacts & their email addresses, go to: http://www.usgo.org/org/index.asp#contactinfo Published by the American Go Association Text material published in "AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL" may be reproduced by any recipient: please credit the AGEJ as the source. PLEASE NOTE that attached files, including game records, MAY NOT BE published, re distributed, or made available on the web without the explicit written permission of the Editor of the Journal. To make name or address corrections, notify us at the email address below. Story suggestions, event announcements, Letters to the Editor and other material are welcome, subject to editing for clarity and space, and should be directed to: Editor: Chris Garlock mailto:journal@usgo.org Chris Garlock, Coordinator Union Cities/Streetheat Metro Washington Council AFL-CIO 1925 K St NW, #410 Washington, DC 20006 202-857-3410 cgarlock@dclabor.org